I played against Bobby Fischer in a simul at Lawrence, Kansas in 1962. Fischer won all of his games except one which he drew against the late Jack Winters. I didn't know Jack at the time but got to know him very well years later (he was my bridge partner).

Jack told me the story about his game with Fischer. He had played a counter gambit against Fischer's Evans Gambit. Jack reached a position where he could force a perpetual check. Jack's wife at the time was a strong player and was also playing in the simul. She asked Jack what he was going to play on the next move. Jack stated that he was going to play for a win. His wife told him, "Up to now Fischer had not been paying that much attention to your game, but there only about 8 other players left in the simul and they all have lost games. Soon you are going to be playing Fischer one on one. Nobody is going to be interested in your story of how you allmost beat Fischer but if you draw Fischer you will have something to talk about." Jack thought it over and decided she was right and took the draw.

This is all prelude to my story which happen when I was playing in a Swiss weekend tournament in Kansas City. Time controls were longer back then (no sudden death or allegro finishes). I had played three tough long game on Saturday, and Sunday morning I felt tired. I decided that would be happy with a quick draw. I found I was paired with a young woman who was rated about 200 points above me. She played in a chess club I did, but I didn't know much about her. She arrived late, and really looked tired. I said to myself, "Pull yourself together, no matter how tired you are she feels twice as bad."

I am White and the game follows the same moves as my game with Fischer, and she makes the same mistake I did. I win quickly and tell her. "This is strange, this game follows a game I played against Fischer"

She asked, "When did you play Fischer?"

I respond, "Lawrence, Kansas 1962."

She says, "I played at that Simul. I was the only woman playing. Do you know Jack Winters, he played at that Simul?"

I say, "Oh yea, he wanted to play for a win and his ex-wife talked him..."

At this point I finally put two and two together, and stop in mid-sentence. I feel extremely embarrassed and hope the ground will open up and swallow me. Fortunately, she laughs and is very gracious about it.

I beat one of the best chess players around my town, and qualified for nationals, he is a otb 1600+ player and made sloppy moves and 1 big mistake and said F*CK, and after I beat him, he almost cried!...I was soo lucky when I won my match because I played only my pawns in my first 10 moves, and he is a d4 player and neeearly killed me playing positional and developing his pieces with power and attacking and attacking and attacking (especially attacking my king)...and now he desperately wants he's revenge!

I'm rated 2089. Twice in the past year, I have been playing A-players who succumbed to touch move, i.e. they attempted to make an illegal move with their queen, which forced them both to make an immediately losing legal move with their queen instead. And in neither case were they in significant time pressure. Very strange.

He was in a dead-even endgame. Coming back from the restroom, he sees that his opponent had cheated, and made two moves. But he decided not to say anything. Because by cheating, his opponent was now in a lost position!

For me, the weirdest thing to ever happen was an arrest of the player sitting next to me.

This happened in the 2002 Southeastern Open, which was in South Carolina, I believe Columbia. Chris Mabe, back then an upper-1800s player, now a master, and I face in the first round, and we draw. So we are on side-by-side boards for round 2, backs to the wall, so we could see the whole room basically because we were on the last row farthest from the doors.

A guy by the name of Scott Gru-Bell, who moved into the area around 1998 or 1999, I happened to notice peeked in the door to the tournament hall. Just happened to look up at the time. Thought nothing of it. Scott started out looking like a legit business man. Clean shaven and everything. I even went to a few of his 1-day tournaments in 2000. However, he had major issues. He was supposedly the leader of the Patriot Party, which based on what others told me, I haven't done the research, was some type of White Supremicist group. He was out to basically steal players from local chess club to try to run competing clubs specifically at the same time. He did this throughout the Northern South Carolina and Charlotte North Carolina areas. Then, anybody that tried to fight what he was doing, he would put up lies on message boards of the North Carolina Chess Association and South Carolina Chess Association Websites. The North Carolina one wasn't secure at the time, and he would even put up posts under another person's name. He put up a derogatory post with MY NAME on it, and occurred during the week, during the day, and weeks later, I get called in my by manager being asked why I'm putting up derogatory comments at work, and was about to write me up and give me a stern warning until I told him it wasn't me, and to have them do research on the IP address. Turns out it wasn't me, it was this fool Scott Gru-Bell.

So anyway, he would also send annoying emails to people, and he sent one to Chris Mabe. Chris responds with "Leave me the f*** alone", or something of that nature with the f-word in it. Supposedly, at least in 2002, in South Carolina, all you have to do is say that someone harassed you and they arrest you. Well, about an hour or two into the round, maybe 30 to 45 minutes after I noticed the peek in, police are coming thru the room, and proceed to arrest Chris sitting right next to me. Everyone in the room has a "What the f***" reaction. I mention I saw Scott peek in and he might have something to do with it, and the director gets him out of the cell during round 3. Chris had to take a loss for round 2, and a half point bye for round 3. He did play rounds 4 and 5.

Since then, this fool Scott grew his gray hair out really long, and he ran some stupid chess show on local TV in Charlotte where he was the chess wizard for a few years in the mid-2000s. He is one of a very short list of people that I actually would not miss if he was dead!

That event/arrest in late October 2002 in South Carolina has got to be the weirdest and most surprising thing to ever occur at a chess tournament that I've attended, and I've seen plenty of hoopla and drama at chess tournaments!

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